Billboards of Brookline

The new movie Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri opens today at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. But did you know there were once billboards right outside the Coolidge Corner Theatre?

In fact, it was 50 years ago today—November 17, 1967—that Town Meeting passed a measure giving the town control over billboards. Prior to that only the state's Outdoor Advertising Board could regulate the large advertising signs. Four years later the Town banned billboards altogether.

Lengthy lawsuits tied up the new measure and it wasn't until 1975 that the signs were removed after the State Supreme Court upheld the right of Brookline and other municipalities to ban billboards from their communities. Until then billboards were common in Coolidge Corner, Brookline Village, and other parts of town

This night view from 1956 shows a huge billboard advertising "GAS HEAT" looming over the marquee of the theater.  (The Disney movie Westward Ho, the Wagons, starring Fess Parker, and the adventure film Manfish, starring Lon Chaney Jr., were showing that night.)

In the wider view below you can just make out another, unlit, billboard with a clock on it across the street, just above the neon sign for Jack and Marion's deli. (Click on the image for a full, zoomable version at Digital Commonwealth.)

Below are other views of Brookline billboards before the ban. Click on each image for a larger, zoomable view.

Washington Street (Route 9) looking toward Boston, 1937

Route 9 looking west, 1956. Gulf Station is between entrance to Riverway and Brookline Avenue

Coolidge Corner, 1950s

Coolidge Corner, 1940s

Hearthstone Plaza (where Washington Street meets Route 9) under construction with inset showing close up of billboards on top of one-story buildings

Washington Street (Route 9) looking east, 1930s

(Photos from the Public Library of Brookline and the Brookline Historical Society)